Without You
by ThisLittleDeath
Summary: Post-Mockingjay SPOILERS if you haven't read. Song-fic: Breaking Benjamin 'Without You'. Peeta struggles to find himself.


**Post-Mockingjay One-Shot - songfic to Breaking Benjamin's "Without You." Peeta's POV. Peeta struggles to find himself and the girl he loves. **

**I don't own HG or any of the characters, nor Breaking Benjamin or any of the lyrics. (Lyrics in Italics, centered throughout)**

**Please Review! Enjoy!**

**~TLD  
**

* * *

Song: Without You ~ Breaking Benjamin

The battles are over. We've won. And yet, as the survivors all return to their homes and begin to rebuild, as the generals begin to construct our new 'Republic,' as we bury the dead and tend the wounded and celebrate all that we've gained, I can't help but think of what I've lost.

I'm lost.

_Search for the answers I knew all along  
I lost myself, we all fall down  
_

The doctors patch me up and send me home. Home? I can barely remember it.

And when I see it, I realize that's probably a good thing. But even still, my heart breaks with the loss, with the memories I still can't find.

I don't even know if they are there to find.

Everyone tells me about my life. And they must be right. How else could they know my dreams? They must not be dreams. Dreams of a grey-eyed little girl, singing on a schoolroom chair. Dreams of bread and brothers and games and sports and a little grey-eyed girl huddling by an apple tree.

_Never the wiser of what I've become  
Alone I stand a broken man  
_

My whole life is now dreams. And I can't tell the difference between which are real and which are not.

People have told me what I was like. Who I was… before.

But I can't remember what it felt like to be that man. To be sure, steady, strong… To love.

He sounds like a good man, this Peeta. And I feel like I shame him, with this… whatever I am now.

So I try. I try to be something – anything – other than this broken man.

But mostly, all I feel is fear. Anger. Hate. _Despair_.

Who am I? What is real?

_All I have is one last chance  
I won't turn my back on you  
_

Home. They show me my home, and the panic sets in. Home.

You're supposed to feel safe. But I never do.

Home. Family. But I have none.

And then she's there. Those grey eyes that haunt me. Open and loving. Narrowed and calculating. Saving me. Torturing me.

She's lost too. Her sister. And now those grey eyes are swollen, clouded, dark.

And her pain pierces me like nothing I've ever felt. And then I know.

I can't leave her behind.

_Take my hand drag me down  
If you fall then I will too_

What's real? I block the shiny images from my mind, but the terror wracks through me nonetheless. I work, I fight, I live, but she falters. She falls.

And even though her grey eyes look upon me lovingly, I can't erase the images that scare me. But when those eyes fill with tears, I can't help but reach out.

Somehow her pain kills me, tortures me, and yet I feel no fear. Finally, I'm not afraid. She needs me.

And so I swallow my fear, push away the evil images, and cling to her. Because I realize, I don't want to live without her.

_And I can't save what's left of you  
_

She screams in the night. Shakes and thrashes. And the sound is terrifying. I can't bear to hear her and not know if she's alright. And once I'm by her bedside, she begs me, "Stay."

Her memories haunt her. Her fears torture her mind. I don't know how to save her. I can't even save myself.

And so I hold her. And she clings to me, and I anchor myself to her. And somehow the nightmares pass us by.

_Sing something new  
I have nothing left  
_

Our waking moments are haunted by ghosts. The future seems… empty. And the little girl who held the mockingjays in her thrall seems to have lost her voice.

I'm lost. My hands feel empty. My paintbrush is gone. My heart…

And I want to cry PLEASE! To beg the little girl, please! Sing for birds. Sing for the future that they might carry on their wings. Please. Sing for me.

_I can't face the dark without you  
There's nothing left to lose  
_

We anchor ourselves against the dark. But the nightmares do not spare us for long.

And then I'm shaking and freezing, paralyzed in my terror as nightmare mutts tear me…her…us… apart, and I'm screaming as she's dragged away, and I'm left again, lost to the pain, lost to the torture, lost…

But then she's whispering. And she's brushing my hair from eyes. She's kissing my cheeks, my eyes, my lips. She's begging me to wake up. To come back to her.

And when I find my way back, she's whispering my name over and over, and I wrap my arms around the one I can't bear to lose.

_The fight never ends  
I can't face the dark without you  
_

The nightmares do not die. And the ghosts follow us by day.

I watch her struggle. She helps me try. And we fight, together. And I remember.

I remember how we've always fought. Together.

_Swallow me under and pull me apart  
I understand there's nothing left  
_

Her eyes follow me and I suddenly fall. It's that image again.

She's laughing and smirking, and those grey eyes are watching me with disgust and disdain, and I'm falling, falling at her feet, as her cruel laugh slices me apart, and her unforgiving eyes usher me to my death.

I tighten and shake, and when I can see again, I look down at the broken glass in my hands.

And then she's rushing and speaking, but I can't hear the words, and her hands are leading me to the sink, her fingers pulling out the sharps from the bloody mess, and all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart.

_Pain so familiar and close to the heart  
No more, no less, I won't forget_

"Peeta," she calls, and finally I'm free.

She's taking care of me. Her grey eyes narrow in determination, marred by the welling of tears.

And then I remember.

I remember the forest, the mud. I remember her cool hand on my fevered brow. Her stew, the sleep syrup, the medicine. I remember the tourniquet. And more… I remember her panicked eyes beneath the halo of tropical plants…

And then my eyes well with tears._  
_

_Come back down, save yourself  
I can't find my way to you  
And I can't bear to face the truth_

We try and we work. We live. And one day, she smiles. And it takes my breath away.

I watch as those cloudy grey eyes begin to clear. And I feel my heart clear in response.

Who knew that grey could be so warm? But they light up her face in a soft, warm, glow. And I feel my heart warm to a point where I finally _know_: I've felt this warmth before.

I remember. I've loved her all my life. And finally, I can remember that feeling.

But, as it is dampened by the flickering of hurt that always haunts my steps, I can remember the truth: It used to fill me up. It used to burn like an eternal light.

But now, it has to fight to dispel the darkness.

_Sing something new  
I have nothing left_

I paint the faces that haunt us. I fill my darkness with colorful paints – colors of the world outside of me. The world has beauty. The Meadow blurs in a riot of lush colors.

I don't paint my dreams. Too bright… and yet, much, _much_, too dark. I can't let them out. Can't give them sway in the only free place left.

They subject me. But I will not let them subject her… them… this new world that I can never be truly part of.

The Mockingjays swoop and sway, and she watches them. Something seems off about it, and I notice, her eyes are wary. No longer full of wonder, or love.

She worries they will quiet and herald the incoming of hovercrafts. Or perhaps they'll sing Rue's song and her heart will break. Perhaps they'll swoop down and carry her off to be the symbol of another bloody war.

But I know why they follow her. They're all begging, same as me, "Sing Katniss."

Please, sing us something new. Give us something to build on. _  
_

_I can't face the dark without you  
There's nothing left to lose  
The fight never ends  
I can't face the dark without you_

When the darkness comes, we cling to each other as we have a million times before. For warmth. For survival. For comfort.

And each night, we battle the nightmares. Together. Some nights they surrender with little fight. But others, we battle ferociously until they are conquered. The fighting never ends.

We live each day like it's a new battle to be won. In the end, we're all we ever were: tributes in the battle to survive.

But, finally, we're fighting on the same side.

_I wanted to forgive  
I'm trying to forgive_

Nature is forgiving.

Trees and flowers, they re-grow with passion and without malice, with determination but without vengeance, even though they were massacred like the rest of us.

I'm not so forgiving.

I try. But when the panic claims me and I wrestle, yet again, for control over _knowing _what's real and what isn't, I can't stop the rush of _**hate**_ that fills me.

Hate for them that took from me. Hate for all I've lost and the poison they left behind.

But mostly, I hate that, even after all these years, they still have sway over me.

_Don't leave me here again  
_

But even when I can't forgive, when the pain is so bad that I can barely remember what it was like to feel whole and happy, when I fear I'll never be fully _me_ again, that's when she finds me.

She kisses me. Holds me through the shaking. Soothes me through the pain. Loves me.

And when she lays our tiny daughter in my arms, I know: I'm never too lost.

_I'm with you forever, the end  
_


End file.
